What We Are Doing

Dining Services partners with many local farmers, growers, and distributors. These local vendors include Dries Orchard, Jack & Jill ice cream, Valley Farms, Georgie’s Bagels, and Kegels Produce.

Scholarly Grounds and Evert Dining Room both feature locally sourced coffee beverages by Rich Coast Coffee located in Lewistown, PA.

Dining Services partners with the campus facilities program to recycle paper, plastic, cardboard, glass, and aluminium from all dining locations across campus.

Dining Services encourages students and staff to bring a reusable mug to dining locations in the effort to reduce waste from single-use cups. Many opportunities are given throughout each academic year for students to win a free reusable cup.

On-campus coffee shop, Scholarly Grounds, provides a 10% off discount when a purchase is made with a reusable cup.

Similarly, on-campus Starbucks retail location discounts 10¢ for every purchase made with a reusable cup.

There are several filtered water hydration stations throughout campus to encourage students to refill water bottles and reduce waste from single-use plastic bottles.

Dining Services encourages students to ask for a sample before ordering a full-sized portion in the effort to reduce food waste.

"Misfit" produce (produce that may be blemished or misshaped but still in suitable condition for consumption) are often used in alternative form to prevent excessive food waste.

Susquehanna University Dining Services is working with students on-campus to launch a chapter of the Food Recovery Network for our campus community. 

O&M Dining is proud to further our partnership with the Office of Sustainability to reduce food waste generated from the dining hall. Since October 2023, all solid food collected from the dish room is transported to a local pig farmer. All of this excess food now helps to feed pigs instead of being thrown away.

The team is also working to donate unused pre-consumer waste. All of the cooks and preppers work diligently throughout the day to set aside excess trimmings and inedible portions of food that would normally go into the trash. These buckets are then sealed and picked up by Facilities who deliver them to the Campus Garden to be used as compost

Vegetarian and vegan options are provided at all mealtimes throughout campus dining locations. Diverse, plant-based proteins are more environmentally sustainable and encourage a smaller food and carbon footprint.

There are many opportunities throughout each academic year for students and staff to learn about the importance of plant-forward eating.

Aramark is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 15%, from our baseline in 2019, by the end of 2025 (in the U.S.). We've also committed to set enterprise-wide science-based targets in line with the Science Based Targets Initiative's Net-Zero Standard. Our food choices can have a big impact on the planet. We can help by balancing menus to celebrate fruits, vegetables and other plants in our plant-forward offerings.